Free False Impressions by Laura Caldwell Page B

email.
    “I’ll analyze the wording,” he said.
    “For what?”
    “The cadence of the words, the use of certain vocabulary, patterns, repetitions.”
    He would, he said, test his data against the comments that had been posted on the website. We hoped his research would show that the same person wrote both, and we’d have enough evidence to figure out who it was.
    “How is she?” Mayburn had asked near the end of our call.
    “I don’t know for sure.” I thought about it. “I could tell the email freaked her out, but she’s out in the gallery right now with clients, and she sounds fine.”
    I thought I heard Mayburn sigh. “Yeah, that’s how she is. And that’s good. Because if she still has the ability to care about art, that means she’s okay.”
    We both fell silent then, both thinking of that email— cut and stretched —and hoping Mayburn’s words would turn out to be the truth.

20
    W hen Madeline was done with her clients, I updated her on my talk with Mayburn and what my father had told me about danger points. She nodded as I spoke, agreeing with everything. I asked her about her move from Bucktown to Michigan Avenue. “The artwork that was forged, did Jeremy buy those after the move?”
    Madeline, behind her black lacquer desk, nodded. She told me how Jeremy and his wife ( the Fex, I thought involuntarily) had looked at the pieces when she was in Bucktown, but purchased both a few months after the move.
    We both fell silent, trying to work out what, if anything that could mean.
    “Speaking of Jeremy,” Madeline said. “How was your date?”
    “Great,” I said. I thought about that kiss. “Great.”
    “What did the two of you do?”
    “Dinner at Girl and the Goat.”
    “Nice. And then?”
    “And then he drove me home. And…” If Maggie or Q had been sitting in front of me, I would have launched into details. I would have described the exquisite kiss. But this was Madeline—not quite a yet friend, but more than just a professional colleague. “He asked me out again,” I said.
    “Excellent.”
    I remembered how Madeline had seemed eager for me to go out with Jeremy. “You mentioned his wife. Do you know her well?”
    She nodded. “She and Jeremy became quite the collectors. Very knowledgeable. Very intuitive about art.”
    Something occurred to me. “Jeremy said it was his lawyer who hired the appraiser, leading to the determination of forgeries. Did they apprise his wife or her attorneys of this yet?”
    “I don’t believe so. He told me he would wait until I…figured this out.”
    “What is she like? Personally?”
    Madeline cocked her head to the side. “It’s hard for me to say. She’s not someone I would choose to spend time with. I find her a little hard to access, like she’s got some kind of resin that coats all parts of her.”
    “That’s surprising. Jeremy seems so warm.”
    “Well, some people really seem to enjoy her. And maybe Jeremy is one of the people she opens up with.”
    “What have you heard about their divorce?”
    “Amicable,” Saga said.
    “The waitress at the restaurant told me she’d heard otherwise.”
    Madeline’s black eyebrows arched. “Really? Interesting. Waitstaff do hear a lot of things while they’re working.”
    “I know.”
    We fell into a contemplative pause.
    “What about Jeremy?” I asked.
    “What about him?”
    “Could he have written you the email?”
    “Of course not!”
    “Don’t protest too fast,” I said. “Trust me, I like Jeremy, and I don’t have a gut instinct that it was him, but he is the one with the fakes. Maybe he’s not as amiable about it as he seems. Maybe he’s pissed off.”
    Madeline paused to consider this. She shook her head. “It was his wife who adored those works more than him. And if you think about it, he’s probably excited in a strange way—if those paintings aren’t worth as much, that reduces his net worth for purposes of the divorce.”
    “And, therefore, reduces the amount of